D&D (2024) 2024 Player's Handbook reveal: "New Monk"

Monk article! https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1758-2024-monk-vs-2014-monk-whats-new

Video Breakdown

Base Monk Class Notes

• Knew monk was going to get a lot of attention - both satisfaction scores and actual play numbers have historically tended to be a bit low
• Similar to ranger, monk is largely a "new class"
• Martial Arts feature at 1st level
  • Monk weapons have been broadened to all simple melee weapons and martial melee weapons with light property
  • Can make an unarmed strike as bonus action
  • Can choose to use Dex to set DCs for unarmed strike grapple and shove options (see general notes below)
  • Martial Arts die - starts at d6 at level 1, scales to d12 at level 17
• Monk's Focus feature at 2nd level
  • Ki/Discipline Points are now Focus Points
  • Patient Defense - can Disengage as bonus action for free
    • Spending 1 Focus Point lets you both Disengage and Dodge at the same time
  • Step of the Wind - can Dash as bonus action for free
    • Spending 1 Focus Point lets you both Dash and Disengage at the same time, and additionally your Jump distance is doubled for the rest of your turn
  • Flurry of Blows - Spend 1 Focus Point to make two unarmed strikes as bonus action
• Uncanny Metabolism feature at 2nd level ("I didn't hear no bell.")
  • When rolling initiative, can regain all expended Focus Points and restore a number of hit points (1/long rest)
• Redesigned Deflect Attacks feature at 3rd level
  • Roll d10 + Dex + Monk level to reduce damage from any attack that deals bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage
  • If damage is reduced to zero, can spend Focus Point to redirect force of attack to someone else - target makes a saving throw and on failure suffers an amount of Force damage based on your Martial Arts die
  • Upgrades to Deflect Energy at 13th level - can deflect any damage type
• Self Restoration feature at 10th level
  • Can end Charmed, Frightened, or Poisoned condition on self at end of monk's turn for free
• Heightened Focus feature at 10th level - further enhancements to Patient Defense, Step of the Wind, and Flurry of Blows (not detailed)
• Superior Defense feature at 18th level - mentioned as example of ways they've increased monk survivability, but not detailed
• Disciplined Survivor feature (level not mentioned) - mentioned as example of ways they've increased monk survivability, allows monk to reroll saving throws
• Stunning Strike feature
  • Can only be used once per turn, but always does something
  • If target fails saving throw, they are stunned
  • If target succeeds on saving throw, their speed is halved and the next attack roll against them has advantage
• Epic Boon at 19th level - no example specified

Subclass Notes

• Warrior of Mercy
  • Largely the same, save for tweaks to better integrate subclass with new version of the base monk class
• Warrior of the Elements
  • Completely replaces Way of the Four Elements
  • Elemental Attunement - not always active, costs Focus Points to "turn on"
    • Can increase reach of unarmed strikes using elemental power ("Not a Mr. Fantastic or One Piece style stretchy punch" )
    • Can change damage type to one of elemental themed options (not specified, but generally guessable)
    • Can force target to make a saving throw and move them around battlefield on a failure
  • Gain Elementalism cantrip
  • At 6th level, can take Magic action and expend some Focus Points to cause elemental explosion in 20-foot radius sphere up to 120 feet away, dealing damage based on Martial Arts Die
  • Themed around tapping into Elemental Chaos as a whole, rather than just one of the Elemental Planes
  • At 11th level, gain fly and swim speed when Elemental Attunement is active
  • Elemental Epitome at 17th level
    • Further improves Elemental Attunement
    • Gain elemental damage resistance (can be changed at start of every turn)
    • When using Step of the Wind, speed is increased and you can cause damage to enemies you pass
    • Additional option to deal bonus elemental damage once per turn (not elaborated)
• Warrior of Shadow
  • Can cast Darkness spell as before, but can now see through that darkness
  • Improved Shadowstep at 11th level
    • Can expend Focus Point to remove requirement to start/end teleportation in dim light or darkness, and can make an unarmed strike as part Shadowstep bonus action
  • Cloak of Shadows at 17th level
    • Turn invisible and partially incorporeal (can pass through occupied spaces as difficult terrain), and Flurry of Blows does not cost Focus Points while Cloak of Shadows is active
  • Kendrick: "Would love to see the Archfey Warlock and Shadow Monk teleporting around the battlefield fighting each other."
    • Crawford: "Not a PvP game."
• Warrior of the Open Hand
  • Wholeness of Body feature at 6th level
    • Now a bonus action and can be used multiple times per day
  • Fleet Step feature (level not specified)
    • Whenever you take a bonus action to do anything other than Step of the Wind, you can also use Step of the Wind immediately after that bonus action
  • Revised Quivering Palm
    • Deals a "truckload" of damage on failed save and a "smaller truckload" of damage on a successful one, but can no longer instantly drop creatures down to 0 hp

General Notes

• Baseline (gold?) dragonborn monk iconic art has a tail.
• Unarmed strike redesigned, intended to grant similar tactical versatility to that offered by weapon mastery - now includes three options:
  • Deal damage
  • Attempt to start a grapple
  • Attempt to shove target

 

[Merlecory]

Well, for a few reasons. One it is more complicated to have to ask the DM what damage this weapon was supposed to do, especially since it might be being boosted by one of the monster's abilities. The rocks Giant's throw are sometimes boosted by the giant's statblock, or a Hobgoblin's dart could be boosted by spells and their sneak attack analog, those would have to be pulled back out of the weapon damage. Much easier to standardize.

Pretty tangential here, but the stone giant has a rock catch feature, letting it grab bolders out of the air. Playing catch with a giant sounds like a great campaign moment.

When I look at mosnter stat blocks in the 2014 (2015?) Monster manual, all of the range attacks that I am seeing are some dice + an ability modifier. Are things like the Stone Giant's 4d10 + 6 boulders not clear enough about them being 4d10? Have newer monster books changed how attacks are presented? I haven't bought one in a while, so I genuinely don't know.

Secondly, it does matter. If early in the adventure the monk doesn't throw back a dagger, because daggers don't do enough damage and they want to make sure they are dealing the most damage with their ki, then they may not use an ability they have purely on an assumption of larger weapons later in the adventure. It also makes this ability far more effective against an assassin with a heavy crossbow than one with a dagger, even though the majority of the damage comes from the same place. And that makes it harder to balance.

Low level (or any level) adventurers trying to get the greatest value out of thier limited resources seem like very normal parts of the game. I don't know that I actually agree with the assertion about the damage source. A knife and a crossbow are different weapons, and do behave differently in PC hands. I don't expect those weapons to do the same damage when a PC uses them. Somehow changing into Force damage and becoming a saving throw s,ees strange. To make pose a different hypothetical, What if they aren't throwing the dagger, but lunging with it. I don't think the deflect also disarms them, so somehow the dagger, that's still in their hand, behaves wildly differently for a brief moment.

Edit
Let me add anther thing here.
An assassin could try to hit a monk with a thrown dagger. Monk deflects, and throws back. The would-be-assassin makes a saving throw, or else athey take 2d Martial arts + Dex of force damage. Had the Monk thorwn the dagger on thier turn though, it would be an attack roll for 1 d Martial Arts (Monk wepon) + Dex.

It the monk were deflecting a melee attack we'd see a similar situation. The would-be-assassin might be attacking for 1d4 + Dex Piercing. The monk deflects this attack. While the assassin is still holding the dagger, it changes to a different damage type, and stabs harder than either psron could have stabbed with it.

The monk can't chose to make the dagger use this damage type (5th level only changes unarmed strikes), and they can't chose to make this attack this strong. It is only deflecting that these somehow happen.

I don't know how to explain this behavior in world, amd I am not sure that the design team really concidered this (I know I didn't in UA)

 

[UngeheuerLich]

They also lost Silence, and likely the darkvision spell. The class is now just put darkness down (and hopefully not screw over other party members) and punch things. Lots of utility was lost.

Personally, I feel like the base class took several steps forward, but subclasses somehow managed to regress.

Yeah. Utility was lost. Monks are now more fighting machines.

But maybe darkvision is kept. The article mentioned only silence and pass without traits. The monk in UA6 just gained darkvision. So the spell is not needed anymore. Extrapolating from the rest: I am sure they kept it.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I don't know how to explain this behavior in world, amd I am not sure that the design team really concidered this (I know I didn't in UA)

They use a focus point for that effect infusing it with monk's kind of magic.

For all I care: hit yourself with the dagger and then reflect it. Done.

If you want, throw it 5 ft in the air and then reflect it 60ft.

 

[Clint_L]

Epic Boon — Level 19​

In the 2014 Dungeon Master’s Guide, Epic Boons were a special reward handed out at the Dungeon Master’s discretion. Now they’ve made their way over to the 2024 Player’s Handbook as a new type of feat with the prerequisite of being level 19+. While Monks can take any Epic Boon, the recommended pick is the Boon of Irresistible Offense, which we’ll look at here:

• Boon of Irresistible Offense: First, increase your Strength or Dexterity ability score by 1, up to a maximum of 30. Next, Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage you deal always ignores resistance. Additionally, when you roll a 20 on an attack roll, you can deal additional damage equal to the ability score you increased with this feat.

Wanted to discuss this, from page two of the thread. WotC has talked about how amazing epic boons are, but this seems kinda lousy. For monk, it’s +1 dex and a slight damage increase. Your unarmed attacks have already been ignoring damage resistance to anything but force since level 5.

But even for other martials, is there anyone who won’t be using a magical weapon at level19? So how often will that part of the feat be used? Am I missing something?

The damage boost is better on champions and barbarians, at least.

 

[mellored]

• Boon of Irresistible Offense: First, increase your Strength or Dexterity ability score by 1, up to a maximum of 30. Next, Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage you deal always ignores resistance. Additionally, when you roll a 20 on an attack roll, you can deal additional damage equal to the ability score you increased with this feat.

Wanted to discuss this, from page two of the thread. WotC has talked about how amazing epic boons are, but this seems kinda lousy. For monk, it’s +1 dex and a slight damage increase. Your unarmed attacks have already been ignoring damage resistance to anything but force since level 5.

But even for other martials, is there anyone who won’t be using a magical weapon at level19? So how often will that part of the feat be used? Am I missing something?

The damage boost is better on champions and barbarians, at least.

Ability SCORE in damage. For level 20 monks, that's +24.

Assume 1 Grapple for advantage then 4 attacks, that's 9.36 damage per round.

And no, Barbarian and Champions don't really do any better.

 

[Clint_L]

Ability SCORE in damage. For level 20 monks, that's +24.

Assume 1 Grapple for advantage then 4 attacks, that's 9.36 damage per round.

And no, Barbarian and Champions don't really do any better.

Ah, my bad. I didn’t catch that.

 

[Stalker0]

Epic Boon — Level 19​

In the 2014 Dungeon Master’s Guide, Epic Boons were a special reward handed out at the Dungeon Master’s discretion. Now they’ve made their way over to the 2024 Player’s Handbook as a new type of feat with the prerequisite of being level 19+. While Monks can take any Epic Boon, the recommended pick is the Boon of Irresistible Offense, which we’ll look at here:

• Boon of Irresistible Offense: First, increase your Strength or Dexterity ability score by 1, up to a maximum of 30. Next, Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage you deal always ignores resistance. Additionally, when you roll a 20 on an attack roll, you can deal additional damage equal to the ability score you increased with this feat.

Wanted to discuss this, from page two of the thread. WotC has talked about how amazing epic boons are, but this seems kinda lousy. For monk, it’s +1 dex and a slight damage increase. Your unarmed attacks have already been ignoring damage resistance to anything but force since level 5.

But even for other martials, is there anyone who won’t be using a magical weapon at level19? So how often will that part of the feat be used? Am I missing something?

The damage boost is better on champions and barbarians, at least.

I was thinking the same, at least for half of it. Ignoring resistances is not going to come up very often....though I guess if your ultra stingy with magic weapons this would actually be incredibly good for certain classes. Terrible for the monk though, as they get force damage at this point which cuts through 99% of monster resistances

Dealing your ability SCORE (not mod, easy to miss) in extra damage could be like 26 damage if you have giant strength items, so that;s ok. But compare to the rogue's example, where its simply "once per turn, if you miss, you hit". That is going to be WAY more DPS in the long run imo.

My last note, I hate that epic boons are only +1 to the stat. So that means that for most games, the +1 is practically worthless. It only really comes into play if you actually play epic and get a number of boons, getting to 30 would take like 10 epic boons!

 

[Stalker0]

I will agree the deflect mechanism is a little clunky. Personally I just wish it was a new attack roll (either the monk or the monster which fits the them better), if the attack hits the AC you deal the damage. A saving throw feels weird imo.

 

[Horwath]

I'm utterly disappointed that they have retreated from prof per day back to ability score per day. It's going to further push players to max out their primary score to 20 as fast as possible. Major step back.

Guess the 1st thing on the menu for house rules is to change everything that is ability modifier per X to prof bonus per X.

I agree, it's a major step back in theme and balancing issue.

Theme is damaged as now players are even more forced into maxing abilities over cool feats to use

and balancing ofc as you cannot count on how much ability can be used per interval and will make suboptimal ability choices even more suboptimal.

So looking forward to all the Str 8, Dex 16, Con 16, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 8 monks at 1st level.... NOT!

Primary attack/DC is more than enough to be keyed to your abilities.

 

[mellored]

Dealing your ability SCORE (not mod, easy to miss) in extra damage could be like 26 damage if you have giant strength items, so that;s ok. But compare to the rogue's example, where its simply "once per turn, if you miss, you hit". That is going to be WAY more DPS in the long run imo.

Assuming you make 1 trip for advantage and 4 attacks...

You have a 68.359375% chance to miss each round.
*1d12+6 = 8.544921875 damage per round.

Which is less than the +24 on a crit.